Alyssa Wysocki

4th Grade Teacher (St. Stephen’s Catholic School, MI)

4th Graders Inspire Change in Public Policy

What did your Blue Apple project enable your students to do?

They were able to choose a topic to debate and work in groups to collaborate. They were also able to research and get opinions from professionals on the topic, and then make and share their podcasts with so many people around the world.

How well did Blue Apple keep your students engaged?

My kids were really engaged because they knew they were going to share their podcasts with their parents, the community, and the world. My students wanted to do this project all day every day. They were truly engaged throughout the entire length of this project. I knew I was doing something right when one of the students said, “Even though we’re done with the project, we’re going to keep researching.”

How did Blue Apple support your students in developing 21st century skills?

My kids were able to collaborate and share ideas throughout this whole project. It got my kids up and moving, critically thinking about each of the responses, and they had fun learning about debating. I am happy they were able to collaborate, practice the habits of mind, and grow as thinkers and learners—all from this one project. Absolutely worth it!

How well did Blue Apple align to your content standards?

This project made it easy to meet my standards. Coming from a Catholic school, I thought it would be a little more difficult to hit each standard, but I didn’t have any problems at all.

How did Blue Apple save you time in implementing project-based learning?

Everything was completely written out day by day and was super easy to adapt if you needed more time on something or less on something else. I would say this is definitely one of the easier projects that I have been able to plan out. It makes it SO easy! The structure was amazing and still very easy to move around and adapt if needed.

See Take a Stand! in action!

Be the teacher who stands out!